Earthbound: The Elusive King of Pigs
by Dantedestroyer9
Summary: Though peace pervades on the Nowhere Islands, an evil is slowly, stealthily approaching. Causality has linked all of these stories together, both by means direct and indirect. This is the return of evil to the world. This is the return of the Pig King.
1. The Mine: Part I

Claus energetically approached the entrance of the ghost mine, Lucas slightly more cautious. He silently motioned to Lucas, drawing his attention to the nearby mine cart. Lucas reluctantly jumped into it behind Claus. They did not move. Claus teased Lucas, saying "Come on, Grandma! You have to push to get us started!" Lucas grudgingly got out and took one last fleeting gaze at the moon in hopes that the mine cart to a safe place and not into a pit. Claus sat impatiently in the cart, waiting for Lucas to start pushing. He glanced down at the bluebag slung around his shoulder over his white shirt that hung at his waist. He noticed it had a startling similarity to Claus's, the only difference about it being the color. Claus grew more impatient with Lucas and urged him to do it, pulling him out of his distracted state. He did. At first, he could not get it to move an inch. Then, with a creak and a loud snap, the rust that bound the wheel to the track broke and quickly crumbled away. Lucas groaned from the massive effort it took to move the surprisingly heavy object. Once he got it moving down the shaft, Claus turned around as Lucas chased the mine cart and grasped his hand, pulling him in on his head by accident. Lucas reoriented himself just in time as the cart quickly accelerated to an unfathomable speed. They zoomed through the mineshaft without any signs of a break in the tracks. Lucas, becoming frustrate, stood up in the cart in hopes that he could see what was ahead. As he peeked over Claus's head, he got a quick view of what was in front of them before being struck in the head by a rotten support beam. Lucas held back a near-uncontrollable flow of tears as Claus shouted in excitement. Lucas had little time to focus on crying, however, because just up ahead, the tracks broke at the edge of a crevasse, lit by the light of the outside. The twins flew through the air over the pit. Lucas could see the moon. He screamed as they started to fall short of the other side of the pit.


	2. The Behemoth: Part I

Flint took another couple of steps up the large sand dune, wondering how anybody could live in such a large desert. He did not even see a cactus anywhere in his field of view. He thought of Lucas, wondering if he was alright, and Claus, hoping that he may someday return. Something about this desert put his mind at peace. He longed for the company of his family; his sons and his wife. They could live peacefully on the ranch again. He was the only one that had not given into the greed, the only one not surrendering to the lifestyle that everybody else had. He started to lose his train of thought. All he knew was that he needed to find some "Needle" thing or something like that. He couldn't really understand the ramblings of that boyish, pink-haired girl. Out of the corner of his eye, Flint spotted something in the distance. It was pink and shaped like a huge lima bean. He decided to inspect it. He warily approached the large metallic bean. It was larger than it looked like from the distance. Upon more careful examination, he noticed an inscription on the side. "P0Rk-B34N". "Porkbean, huh?" Was this some kind of vehicle? Where was the entrance to it? Flint thought for a moment about how he was going to get inside. Suddenly, the door opened, slamming violently on the sand below it and nearly crushing Flint's foot. "Convenient." He thought to himself. He sat down on the leftmost seat in the front. There were no controls. Confused, Flint pictured the vehicle in motion. It did just that. Interesting. Well, this was definitely a faster mean of travel. It should suffice. For a while, he hovered above the sands at a high speed, but he began to wonder if he was alone inside of this abandoned vehicle. Nobody would just leave it behind like that, right? He thought he could hear a laser pistol charging up, but did not have time to react before he felt the barrel pressed up against the back of his head. He heard an incredibly low-pitched voice behind him say "Trying to take my ride before I get to the DCMC concert, huh? Well, I'll take care of you". In a split second, Flint could feel the heat from the laser pistol. Now was the time to act.


	3. The Mine: Part II

Lucas screamed in terror. Claus screamed in excitement. Lucas wondered for but an instant how Claus could be enjoying the ride to their death. He shut his eyes tightly as the mine cart fell ten feet short of the track. Suddenly, he heard a crashing sound. "Am I dead?" He wondered. He opened his eyes and saw the inside of the mine shaft again. How was this possible? No matter. He was too focused on the tunnel ahead of them, now. Claus seemed ignorant of what had just happened, as though it had never taken place. Faster now, faster they raced down the tracks on an increasingly steep incline, reaching a speed so high the wheels started to rattle, as if threatening to come off. All too suddenly, they turned a sharp corner that tipped the cart and nearly threw Lucas out. Claus looked up. The tunnel had opened up to a colossal room too large for him to see its boundaries. However, most of it opened up into the mouth of yet another deep ravine. Just down the tracks, Claus could see a house surrounded by a couple of precarious wooden pillars upon which there sat large boulders, their purposes in such a place unexplained. It felt like slow motion as Claus observed the rotten wooden house (which was in quite an unusual place for one) while they flew around the tracks that curved around the ancient structure. The house, the unusual pillars, the tracks and their wooden supports, being quite old, quickly buckled under the weight of the cart, all leaning in unison towards the chasm over which they were suspended. In a single abrupt motion, the strange house and pillars toppled over into the ravine like a house of cards, crushing the tracks already passed by the two brothers under their clearly immense weight. Claus leaned to the side, making every attempt to keep the cart balanced on one wheel on the compromising tracks, as they slowly crumbled only inches behind them. Meanwhile, Lucas burst into tears and cried hysterically, covering his eyes.. They finally reached some tracks grounded on stone. Lucas removed his hands from his eyes, seeing they were still alive. He screamed "Claus! That was amazing!" Claus said nothing, for this was the first time that he had feared death, too. As they rolled down another narrow tunnel, Claus noticed they were losing momentum, and progressively lost more as the uphill incline upon which they were rolling became steeper until they came to a complete stop. "What just…." Were the only words Lucas could say before they started rolling backwards. "No, no, no!" screamed Claus as they rolled towards the ravine again. Claus was powerless to stop it as the cart rolled off the tracks and threw them into the darkness of the chasm. This time, Claus was the one screaming. Because of this, Lucas became truly afraid.


	4. The Behemoth, Part II

With a swift motion, Flint leaned forward and struck the hand of the man behind him with his elbow. The laser would leave a clean hole burnt through the roof of the Porkbean. With another quick movement, Flint turned and punched the man in the face, but before he could feel triumphant, he was overwhelmed by pain in his hand. Was the man wearing armor? He must have been, but Flint didn't see him in the blur of the moment. As he took his focus off of his hand (which was fortunately unbroken), he looked up at the man. And he continued to look up for quite a while. He must have been eight feet tall, but moreover, this was no man. It wore a pig mask like the soldiers that constantly threatened him at his small ranch; the same ones that changed his and everybody else's way of life so drastically. The pain of the memories that flowed back so quickly made Flint grit his teeth in rage. He turned around and threw another punch, but the heavy soldier grabbed him by the arm and lifted him up to his eye level. His eyes were a deep black. Before Flint had a moment to study his enemy, he found himself flying through the windshield of the Porkbean. Flint landed in the blazing sand and struggled to his feet as the Porkbean came to a stop and his assailant stepped out. Flint's blue duster flapped gently in the hot breeze. The two stood facing each other, the middle-aged rancher and the… Giant… Whatever it is. Silence ensued, for what seemed like hours. But soon, the silence was broken in the standoff. The behemoth charged towards Flint, leaving deep impressions of its feet in the sand. Flint rolled to the side and the Pigmask's punch was missed, leaving a crater in the yellowish sand 4 feet deep. Flint, now standing behind the creature, quickly drew the 5 foot long ironwood log, waiting for just the right moment. Turning around, the Pigmask tried to crush Flint under its huge fist. Flint sidestepped it, moving in closer and uppercutting it, right in the jaw, or whatever it was. Flint's hand hurt even more than the first time he made that mistake, but he had no time to focus on that. As the Pigmask stumbled backwards, Flint put all of his strength behind his swing with his sole weapon, delivering a massive blow to the nose on its mask, and leaving it crushed in a humorous accordion-like fashion. With a loud thud, his adversary hit the ground. Now it was time to remove that horned mask. With a groan of effort, he tried to remove the mask, but observed something strange. The horned mask felt… Warm. Flint was sure that there was a visible exclamation mark above his head. Was this thing a huge, sapient, English-speaking pig? Flint had seen a few Pigmasks unmasked before, but the normal-sized soldiers were human! What was this thing? As he tried to rationalize all of this, Flint felt a crushing pressure around his arms and waist. The Pigmask-creature-something-or-other had him in its grasp, and the grip was getting tighter! Flint knew now that this was how he would die. He closed his eyes and thought of his wife and sons. His heart sank.


End file.
